The Romantic
Linen that has been washed enough times to go soft, flowers bought for no occasion, a bed made properly every morning. Venus rules both her signs, one for the senses and one for balance, and the room usually shows both.
What balances it
A room this soft asks for one hard edge. Iron, dark wood, or a single black frame gives the eye somewhere to land.
Bedroom
Pink in a bedroom lives or dies on the undertone. Blush with brown in it is warm and grown; blush with blue in it goes cold and reads as a nursery. On a paint chip the two look the same.
- Walls
- Morganite, which is pink with the warmth left in. Paint two walls and look at them after dark before you commit to four.
- Bedding
- Washed linen in shell and cream, layered rather than matched. Linen belongs here because it improves with washing, and this is a palette about things that soften.
- The deeper rose
- Rhodochrosite on a headboard, a velvet cushion or the curtains. Without one deeper note the room goes sugary.
- Pearl
- Cream and shell on the lampshades and on the surfaces you touch.
Light
Diffused. A shade rather than a bare bulb, and a dimmer if the room has only one fitting.
Where it goes wrong
Flowers bought for no occasion are the spirit of this palette, and flowers left too long read louder in a soft room than they would anywhere else. If the vase is a habit, emptying it is part of the habit.
Living room
Venus rules both of this palette's signs, one for the senses and one for balance. A blush living room needs the second more: symmetry is what keeps it from looking like a set.
- The sofa
- Dusty rose, nearer clay than candy. At that scale, always go duller than the swatch.
- Pairs
- Two lamps, two cushions in the same cloth, two chairs. The tradition pairs things in rooms it wants settled, and it does read as calm.
- Cream
- Curtains and rug. Pale on the large soft surfaces stops the pink taking the room over.
- One dark
- A walnut table or a black frame. This is the correction that makes the rest look chosen.
Light
Warm and even, with a lamp on each side rather than one in the corner.
Where it goes wrong
Blush reads differently under warm bulbs than under daylight, and most people choose it in a shop and then live with it at night. Look at the sample under the bulbs you already own.